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Whenever you shop for electronics,

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it's pretty easy to get lost

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in a discombobulating vortex of numbers

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that manufacturers throw at you

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to try to entice you to buy their gadgets.

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Ah!

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But there are some that are really just fluff

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you can more or less ignore.

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So what are they?

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Let's start out with one of the most common

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and most useless specifications you'll see,

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a CPU's clock speed, usually given in gigahertz.

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You'll see this as being one of the first things listed

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for most PCs that you buy,

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and it's very easy to think,

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hmm, more gigahertz equals faster computer.

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See, here's the thing.

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You can't really compare clock speeds

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between different computers.

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Processors have all sorts of other differentiating factors

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that are more important,

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such as the specific microarchitecture they use.

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Each new generation of CPUs

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typically contains microarchitectural improvements

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in the silicon that can give you higher instructions

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per clock cycle, better branch prediction,

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and more power efficiency,

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all of which are more important

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than the raw number of gigahertz.

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Clock speeds only really matter

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when you compare chips with the same microarchitecture

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and the same number of cores.

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Otherwise, you're not gonna wanna fret over this too much.

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It's kind of like how a Kia Rio

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and an Aston Martin Vantage

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can both reach 100 miles per hour,

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but the Aston Martin's gonna get up to speed much faster

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and be far more powerful and responsive.

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Next up, let's talk about those eye-popping speeds

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that SSD companies put on their product labels.

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It's pretty easy these days to find SSDs

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that claim to give you speeds at or above

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3,000 megabytes per second,

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but those figures can be misleading.

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And while it's true that the NVMe-based SSDs

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that boast this kind of performance

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are indeed faster across the board

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than their older SATA counterparts,

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it doesn't mean you can completely trust their numbers either.

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You see, there are two main issues

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with just looking at that spec.

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Those high megabytes per second numbers

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refer to sequential performance,

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meaning it's not a good metric of performance

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if you spend most of your time watching videos,

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working in Excel, or serving up spicy takes on Twitter.

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During typical everyday use,

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the random performance given in IOPS is more important,

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as you'll usually be accessing smaller pieces of information

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from different places on the drive

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than large sequential chunks of data

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located in a physically contiguous spot.

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But let's say, for the sake of argument,

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you do work with large amounts of sequential data

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because you're a video editor or some such thing.

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Even in this situation,

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the numbers on the spec sheet often aren't reliable.

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Many SSDs have a relatively small amount of fast cache,

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that's used when you first start moving files around.

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But as time goes on,

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sometimes even after just a few seconds,

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speeds will drop off precipitously as the cache fills

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and the SSD starts using the slower portion

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of its flash memory.

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Now this isn't to say all SSD manufacturers are dishonest,

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but some of them will put down a speed

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that you'll only realistically get

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for a short period of time.

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So be sure to read independent reviews

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and see how long the SSD you're interested in

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can maintain performance at or near

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what it says on the spec sheet.

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Finally, let's touch on a common letdown

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if you're shopping for monitors, HDR support.

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HDR or high dynamic range is a set of standards

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that can give you better contrast and clearer colors.

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But a monitor simply saying it has HDR support

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doesn't tell you very much,

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since there are a lot of monitors out there

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that technically accept an HDR signal,

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but the picture ends up looking like absolute garbage

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when you turn it on.

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So why does this happen?

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The two primary culprits

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are when the monitor can't get bright enough,

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as adequate brightness is crucial for HDR to look correct.

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And when the monitor can't display

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a wide enough color gamut or give enough color accuracy

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to take full advantage of the HDR signal.

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So instead of jumping on a monitor

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just because it says it has HDR support,

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check its peak brightness rating.

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Anything that's certified for VESA display HDR 600 or higher

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should at least get adequately bright

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with display HDR 1000 or higher being ideal.

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A monitor that can cover at least 90%

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of the IP3 color gamut is probably also a decent bet.

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But if you really want to be sure,

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read reviews where an actual human being

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looked at the screen with HDR turned on.

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Are there specs that manufacturers push that frustrate you?

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Let us know what they are in the comments

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and we might talk about them in a future episode.

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Really just lay into us here.

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Talk about your frustrations.

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Speaking of things that are frustrating,

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finding quality stock footage,

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Whoa, that was a Techquickie, all right.

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Thanks for watching, guys.

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